The Swan's Wing
by Erinya
Summary: She's magnificent and terrifying, a fallen Valkyrie, a lioness at bay, desperate and deadly and breaking his heart. JE hc, WE discussed. Possible AWE SPOILERS based on rumors and concept art.


**Disclaimer**: Soooo not mine in any way. Nope.  
**Warning**: Possible SPOILERS based on AWE rumors and concept art.  
**Note**: Much gratitude to **geekmama2** who inspired and authorized this bunny from a line in her beautiful Occasion of Sin.

* * *

**The Swan's Wing**

It's all gone sideways, Jack thinks. Not at all like he'd planned.

Or maybe sideways isn't the right term. Because they're going _down_, swirling at the edge of the unnatural maelstrom woken by Calypso's rage. He ducks a flying spar, staggers, grabs a line for balance, and scans the chaos of the melee boiling over the deck.

And then he sees her, cutting her way through a knot of Beckett's men; they part before her in a sea of red, uniforms and gore, until she's standing before him. She's got what he hopes is someone else's blood smeared on her face and slick on her hands, and the rain streaks through the crimson on her cheeks like tears.

He reaches for her; she swings at him viciously, and he jumps away just in time. Her eyes are unseeing, empty but for that unholy light of battle-lust and rage. She's magnificent and terrifying, a fallen Valkyrie, a lioness at bay, desperate and deadly and breaking his heart.

"Elizabeth," he says. "Lizzie! It's me, love. It's only ol' Jack," as if soothing a wild creature.

She hesitates, turning her head blindly, nostrils flared, and it's opportunity enough; he darts forward, grasping her wrists with both hands, dodging her sword. She struggles against his grip; the strength hidden in that delicate frame surprises him, but her movements are undirected and a little clumsy, and he recognizes the signs of shock and exhaustion.

"Look at me," he says roughly. "Elizabeth! Stop it." His fingers find the pressure point at her wrist, and she cries out in fury and pain as her sword drops to the ground.

"Let me go," she spits out. "Wretch! I'm not done with them."

"Yes you are," he says. "We've got to get out of here. Ship's sinking fast."

"No," she says, eyes blazing out suddenly. "Not without Will."

"Will's not coming with us, lass. You know that."

She stares at him, going still; the fire drains out of her eyes and leaves them dull with memory, with despair. "No," she whispers. "Oh, God, Jack. The heart. He really did it. He's really gone…"

No longer resisting him, she falters; he catches her, wrapping an arm about her waist, then pulls her down into a half-crouch as a cannonball whistles past their heads and rips into the mainmast. With a groan of fracturing wood and the snapping of ropes and sails, the mast topples towards them in slow motion.

"Hold on, love," he says, through gritted teeth, and pulls her close, grabbing a fallen ratline to swing them over the rail of the crippled ship and into the waiting maw of the angry ocean.

When Jack surfaces, shaking the water out of his eyes, Elizabeth clinging to his neck with her own eyes wide and shocky, it's to the sight of Beckett's flagship and the Flying Dutchman swallowed slowly in tandem by the maelstrom. And as soon as the two ships vanish, the whirlpool unwinds itself and dissipates; the wind drops; the driving rain gentles to a cool drizzle. He and Elizabeth float alone on a calm sea.

"What happened?" Elizabeth says, shakily. "Does that mean we won?"

Winning's a funny word for it, and she's lost more than anyone. "It means it's over," he says. "For now. Time to swim for it, I think." He points to where the dark masts of the Brethren crowd the horizon, waiting for their King.

She's shivering, but she struggles forward through the water, her small face white and set.

* * *

Back on the _Black Pearl_, blessed Gibbs has blankets waiting for them; Jack tucks one around Elizabeth, and has to catch her elbow when she sways alarmingly. He realizes then that the water dripping from her soaked clothing onto the _Pearl_'s deck is tinted red.

Their little dip in the ocean should have left her clean; but this is fresh. "Sodding _hell_, Lizzie," he says. "Why didn't you say something?"

She looks at him, uncomprehending. "What?"

He slips an arm around her shoulders and she gasps, leaning into him. Her jerkin is torn clean through, and the dark, wet stain seeping through it on her right side isn't water at all.

"You're wounded," he says.

She puts her hand to her side, stares at her bloodied fingers as if she's not sure what to make of them. "I didn't know," she says distantly. "I don't remember."

"That's as may be," he says. "You'll come with me direct. That means now," he adds, when she seems disinclined to move, and steers her toward the cabin. "Gibbs!" he snaps over his shoulder. "Step to, man. I need bandages. And rum, if you please."

She doesn't protest, and he takes that as a bad sign; she's stumbling badly by the time he's got her inside. Shaking, too. He sits her down on the bed, yanks a chair over from his navigation table to sit before her. He's not sure that his own hands aren't shaking as he slips her baldric off her shoulder and sets it aside, then sets to work on the fastenings of the heavy, ornate jacket she's worn stubbornly since Singapore: the trappings of a warrior lord. It suits her, of course, his battle-weary lady.

This is not how he has pictured this moment, the moment in which he first gets to undress her. He's imagined it a thousand times, uncovering her pale lovely skin in inches, in kisses; or in haste, ripped fabric and sliced laces. Never in dread with ashes in his mouth.

"Jack," she says, her speech slow, as if it takes effort to enunciate. "What are you doing?"

He sloughs the jacket off her shoulders, closes his hands firmly on them; waits for her to meet his eyes, finally reassured when she does. Out on the deck he'd worried that she was slipping away from him into hysterics or catatonia, by the way her eyes had drifted, flat and dead. But he can see now that she's trying, fighting to keep above the surface of grief and pain and shock, and that's something, at least. "Got to get you fixed up, love."

"I'm all right," she says, some vestige of willfulness retained. "I don't need fixing. Nothing's broken."

"You're a liar," he retorts. Under her coat, her white blouse is soaked through with water and blood, her nipples visibly erect under the thin cotton, and he drags his attention back to her face. "I'm just going to lift up your shirt and have a look at this cut. No slapping me, now."

He takes hold of the hem; she tenses, her hand dropping over his as if to stop him; but he holds her gaze, and after a long moment she allows him to continue, breathing quick and shallow as he peels the fabric up. The wound is long, running from just under her breast to the swell of her hip, but shallow, for a mercy, and only oozing blood now. She's lucky. Abdominal wounds kill; he's seen it, watched men try to scoop their insides back in with their own hands. He shudders involuntarily at the thought of Elizabeth…No. It doesn't bear thinking of.

"Is it bad?" she whispers.

"You'll live," he says, his voice harsh with relief. "A few stitches and you'll be fit to raise Hell again in no time."

"I only did that once," she says, and he detects the faintest ghost of a smile. "For you."

"I know, love." He lifts a tendril of hair, tacky with salt and drying blood, and tucks it behind her ear. To his surprise, she drops her head forward onto his shoulder; he finds himself reaching up to stroke her thin back, feels her trembling exhalation under his touch. At that, he curses, low, and pulls her close; she curls against him, practically in his lap.

"I think I'm bleeding on your coat," she says, after a little while, though she doesn't move.

"Only a little," he says. "It'll wash out. Or it won't. And I've got other coats."

"No, you haven't," she says seriously. "Or if you have, I've never seen you wear any of them. Just this one."

"So like a woman," he says, "thinking about clothes at the most inopportune moments. I'll get another one, then. You can owe me a coat."

"You forget I'm a pirate," she mumbles, into the coat in question. "Pirates don't pay their debts."

"Darling," he says, "I could never forget such a thing. But I do plan to hold you to it."

"Do you," she says, lifting her head to look at him; but Gibbs knocks then, and he draws back, wrapping the blanket around her for modesty.

"I brought what you asked for, Cap'n," Gibbs announces. "And the surgeon's kit as well."

"Good man," Jack says, bounding up to take the things from him. Gibbs hovers in the doorway, looking worried.

"Need anything else, Cap'n?"

"She'll be all right, Gibbs," Jack says, softly. "At least in body, if I account meself well in my doctoring."

"Ah. But it's the heart and soul as troubles you, ain't it? An' not only hers."

"No," Jack says. "Now, go away, please, Gibbs, and stop being canny. It makes me itch."

"Sorry, Cap'n." Gibbs touches his forehead, but as he turns to leave, he says, "There's doctorin' for the other things as well, ye know."

"Out," Jack says ominously, and shuts the door after him. "I know that, you old sot," he says, under his breath. "Pity I'm not much good at t'other sort, eh?"

"Jack?" Elizabeth says in a small voice, and he turns, resolutely, to face his fate.

"Right," he says, coming back to her side. "I'm afraid this part will hurt a bit, Lizzie."

"Is that what the rum's for?" She looks defiant, and more alert than she did before, which bodes well in some ways but not in others. "I'm not afraid of a little pain."

"I don't doubt that," he says. "But as I said, I am. That's why the rum's for me. For my sake, please drink some. Unless, of course," he adds, "you'd prefer me to stitch you up while _I'm_ three sheets to the proverbial wind."

She frowns, but accepts the bottle, taking an admirable swig. "Is this really necessary?"

"Yes," he says. "If you want it to heal properly, that is. Although you _are_ going to have a very nice scar to show for it, either way."

"It doesn't matter now," she says, obliquely. "Let's get on with it, then."

"No fuss, no waiting," he says. "Very well. I expect you're not going to like this," as he sits down before her, shedding his stained coat, "but you're going to have to lose that shirt."

She stares at him a moment; he can't tell what she's thinking. Then she nods. "It's ruined anyway."

"That's my girl," he says. "I promise I won't look. Much."

"Don't make me promises you don't intend to keep," she says; there's an edge to the words that startles him, and she lifts her chin, a challenge.

"I'll have some of that rum now, I think," he says; when he passes the bottle back to her, she takes a long drink herself, still watching him.

He leans forward then, pulling the damp fabric from where it clings to her skin, and draws it slowly up as he had before, but past her small, perfect breasts this time, over her head and off her arms; she winces a little when she raises her right arm to help him.

And of course he must look at her. He can't help himself. And she doesn't cover herself or look away or even blush, just bears his regard, proud as she ever has.

"Well?" she says. It's almost a drawl.

He forces himself to look up at her eyes. He wants to touch her, very badly, but now is not the time, and there is the business of the cut to attend to. "Beautiful," he says. "But you must know you're a lovely thing, sweet Bess."

"Not so lovely anymore," she says, dropping her head, her hand shielding the angry red gash across her ribs.

"So you're marked," he says. "What of it? So am I, love. Occupational hazard. Lie back, now, and put your hand up behind your head. Just so."

He tries to make as neat and quick a job of it as he can, and she's as brave a patient as he could ask for; but she can't keep herself from crying out around the strip of leather he's given her to bite, and she grips the headboard, white-knuckled, until he thinks she might crack it and something inside him, too. In the end they're both sweating and panting, exhausted; he wipes her blood from his hands, and reaches to thumb away the tears running freely down her cheeks.

"There, Lizzie," he says, "I'm done hurting you;" and thinks it's probably a lie.

"Damn bloody _bastard_," she gasps, and strikes out at him, hard. He lets her, just once, for the pain he's just given her, her fist thudding into his chest, and then catches her hand and gathers her up; she clutches at his shirt, her body wracked by harsh convulsive sobs.

"That's it," he murmurs, just holding her, this exquisite half-naked woman in his arms and he's not thinking of having her, not just now, not like this, and what has she done to him? "Let it go, darling, it's all right, I know…" Knows she's not only crying for what he's just done to her, but for all she's lost and won and all that she's still risking.

When she finally calms, he expects her to pull away; ashamed, perhaps, or angry, or cold. But she doesn't. She stays there, wrapped around him and he around her, her cheek laid against his chest, and he wonders if she has possibly fallen asleep; until she says, as if to herself,

"I think some part of me knew that he would do it, all along. But I still can't believe it."

"Destiny's a funny thing, innit," says Jack. "The more folks know about it, the more they try to fight it. 'S why prophecies and portents aren't much use to anyone."

"He didn't fight it," she says. "He accepted it. He was so good, Jack. Too good for me, I think. I could never…I would always fight."

"Of course," he says, thinking of the fierce light he's seen in her eyes, the lioness, how a swan's beating wing is strong enough to break a man. "I've never seen you do anything else, love."

"I don't know how not to," she says. "I didn't deserve him. I was never what he thought I was. I just," she takes a breath. "I'm not so sure how to go on, in a world without Will Turner in it. How strange that sounds," and her voice breaks, a little.

"You know, Lizzie-girl," he says, "that's not entirely accurate. He took the _Dutchman_, and the _Dutchman_ keeps her own. For centuries, if they let her. There may never be a world without Will Turner again. Think on _that_…if you dare." A truly frightening concept.

"But he's not mine anymore," she says. "He was my center, Jack. My compass. Without him, I might just…" and she flutters a hand.

"Fly away?" says Jack. He draws the blanket up around them.

"Yes," she says, "and not be able to find my way home."

"Won't happen," he says. "You see, m'dear, birds…and other things that fly," skimming his fingers down the blade of her shoulder, feather-light, "all have a sort of compass in their heads. In their souls, as it were. That's how they always know true north. But their real home, Lizzie, their real place," imitating her fluttering movement, because she had stolen it from him first (pirate) "…is on the wing."

"Between the poles," she says, thoughtfully. "So you're saying I should be my own compass."

"Not should," he says. "Am. Are. Er…you are your own compass, that is. Your own center."

"And if the compass is broken? Like your old one?"

"It wasn't broken," he growls. "It was _unique_. So's yours."

"I don't know about that." She stirs restively. "I killed a lot of men today, Jack."

"They wanted killing," he says, into her hair, smelling the sea. "Badly."

"It was easier than I thought it would be."

"They say the first time is the hardest," he says. "And that was me, love." His Doom beside him, her silken skin under his palms, and he thinks of that kiss. The first time is the hardest, but he's just as hard now, waiting for that second.

"Oh, God," she says, and buries her face in her hands. "What have I become?"

"Yourself," he says. "Elizabeth. A Swann. My pirate queen."

"King," she corrects him, and looks up at him with a dangerous gleam in her eye. "Yours, am I?"

"Your subject, Madame. I'm a member of the Brethren, am I not?"

"Then you are mine, it seems."

"Now that," he says, "remains to be seen."

She sits up, throwing the blanket off, ivory skin and rosy areolas and scar-to-be. "Let's see then, shall we," she says; and her mouth upon his is north and south and all the points between.


End file.
